Welcome to the BLACK COUNTRY, are we black? Most certainly, it’s funny how areas get their names and they seem to stick no matter the age, the era and many even forget or misinterpret why some areas are termed as such and the Black Country is no different.

Where Is The Black Country?

The Black Country is in the West Midlands, between Birmingham and Wolverhampton and encompasses such towns as Bilston, Blackheath, Brierley Hill, Brownhills, Coseley, Cradley, Cradley Heath, Darlaston, Dudley, Dudley Port, Gornal, Great Bridge, Halesowen, Kingswinford, Lye, Netherton, Oldbury, Old Hill…

The wide sprawl has no fixed boundary – we’re getting to that – and people within the Black Country and the surrounding areas argue amongst themselves as to who lives within the Black Country and who should be without the title name.

Some Black Country people are aggrieved at being passed around other local councils for governance and feel that the Black Country has been so important to them over the centuries and to the country as a whole that they should be allowed to stand alone, be united and stand as tall as the Black Country name itself.

The Black Country Name, Area And History

There is much ado about the name and history of the Black Country but it is accepted by most that the term was derived thanks to the discovery of seams of black coal, the largest and longest in the United Kingdom at thirty feet is to be thanked for the area inbetween the seams that turns soil to black and helped the local economy be the hustle and bustle of Britain for two separate centuries.

A few point to the naming of the area due the Industrial age and mining where the area would be covered in smog and soot from the various mines, foundries and industrial complexes that used the local coal to generate income and manufacture goods, a real hub of England enterprise in its time.

Others state that the area was known as the Black Country as far back as the 15th and 16th centuries, noting that the 30 ft seam of coal has been there a lot longer than most can remember. The Black Country museum in Dudley holds in time an era best not lived in but fondly remembered as one which created wealth for an area, not once or twice but several times over in the last thousand years.